


Space

by SidleyParkHermit



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 04:30:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13240464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SidleyParkHermit/pseuds/SidleyParkHermit
Summary: A stocking stuffer for a prompt in the JediFest December exchange. Prompt: "Leia Organa - Home." Post-TLJ.





	Space

"Ma'am?" Leia looked up and saw Finn, that strange new soldier who'd delivered Starkiller and stayed on with what was left of them. "What are our orders?"

That, she thought, was a good question. She looked around the  _Falcon_ 's main hold, full of people -- her people -- who got out with nothing but what was on their backs. She felt their fear, giddiness, exhaustion. She felt, a little more sharply than she was yet used to, the pain of the wounded and hungry. Their destination was uncertain, and the ship's provisions were -- well, she had Artoo checking on that.

"Go to sleep," she said finally.

"Everyone?"

"Everyone except medical. You're all under orders to sleep as long as you can and do whatever Doctor Kalonia says."

"Yes ma'am," said Finn. She was going to need to give him a rank. "Does, uh... does that include you?"

He had her there. She sighed, drew herself up, and let Finn walk with her to the quarters that she'd made Han remodel all those years ago, so that it would be almost appropriate for civilized adults to live in. The crew bunks along the way were already full, two to a bed, so she expected "her" bunk to be taken too, but there was no one there except Connix, sitting upright on the floor against the bed, asleep. She roused a little when they came in and muttered, "No, it's the general's bunk."

"You're relieved, Connix," Leia said. The lieutenant scrambled up and saluted. "Go with Finn."

Then they were gone, and she was left with her bed, to try to follow the same impossible directive she'd given the rest of the souls aboard. Sleep. Conserve energy, let your body heal itself. Sleep.

She laid her head down on the pillow. With no one looking at her, she let herself think it.

_I want rest,_  she thought.  _I want to rest and rest. Not to get back up. I am so tired. I want this to be over. I want to be with Luke. I want to be with Luke._

What answered wasn't quite a voice, and it wasn't quite words, but if she had to try to tell someone else about it she would call it her brother's voice. She would say that it said:

_You will be. I'm always here. There’s no rush._

She felt again the sense of infinity that she had in that suspended minute outside the  _Raddus_ , between life and death. She was different since then. She touched the absolute emptiness of space with her bare skin, and she knew the infinity that surrounded her, and the eternity that stretched out before and behind her. She felt, with no fear, how very short a human life was. A belonging and understanding of her small human body among the stars.

_It’s our home_ , she felt Luke say, as she lay there listening to the  _Falcon_ 's systems hum.  _We are light._

Each beating heart on the ship was part of her, and she a part of them. It was a truth she could never lose, now that that light within her had awoken out against the vacuum of space. The infinite stars burned with infinity between them, and she slept.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Space [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13954932) by [semperfiona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperfiona/pseuds/semperfiona)




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